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| <back | home What Might Happen If Many Things Break Down at Once by Shepherd Bliss My hot water heater recently sprang a leak. So I dumped it. Inconvenient, but not a big deal -- quickly replaceable, at least these days. But the incident stimulated me to reflect on temporary, annoying, but currently fixable inconveniences. But what might happen when breakdowns are not so temporary or so quickly or inexpensively repairable or replaceable? What might happen when our complex industrial/mechanical/electronic civilization faces a major crisis? For example, as our oil-based way of life faces declining petroleum supplies and increasing world-wide demand, what might happen as breakdowns grow more numerous? My computer sometimes crashes. What a drag. I’ve become dependent upon that vulnerable machine. I can usually fix it or hire a technician within a few hours. After much time without that apparently crucial industrial tool I begin to go crazy. Typewriters now seem so ancient, time-consuming, and inadequate. “You’ve Got Mail” can be addictive. My various cars over the years haven’t always started. How frustrating. Perhaps they sought revenge for the many nasty things I’ve said about polluting automobiles. Luckily, nearby friends get me to repair shops for a new battery, other parts, a relatively quick fix. But what if the parts or people to repair my car were not there, busy for weeks, or so expensive I could not afford them? Some good friends recently moved from their well-wired house into the forest here in Hawai’i. They temporarily had no phone or computer. So I could not easily reach them; I had to drive, bike, or walk four miles further up the volcano on which we live. It is hard to imagine being without a phone, even for a day. Think about it. An email-addict friend recently joined Emails Anonymous. He realized he had lost control of a habit that was dominating him as if it were alcohol. But he did not join Internet Anonymous, so he still surfs the web. Can you imagine life without the web or email? Storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes have shut down electricity where I have lived for most of my 60+ years. After a few hours or days, the electricity has always returned, with its multiple gifts and conveniences. But what if it did not come back for weeks, months, years, or ever? How long can you go without ____ (fill in the blank)? Ever have a refrigerator go out? How long would your food supply last? Multiple disruptions could occur more frequently with a crisis like the gradual unfolding of Peak Oil: the mid-point of our decreasing petroleum supply, as the world-wide demand climbs, especially in industrializing countries like China and India. 21st-century American society relies on complex, interlocking industrial/mechanical/electronic systems. This includes transportation that gets food and other essentials and non-essentials from one place to other places hundreds or thousands of miles away. These complex systems often clash with natural systems that pre-date them, and hopefully will outlast them. Peak Oil directly impacts complex human-made systems; it will slow things down and eventually stop some of them. Fixes will become increasingly more expensive and people with fix-it skills even more valuable.What will happen when there is no quick fix for a broken-down water heater, computer, car, or whatever? Perhaps the fix-it guy is busy fixing someone else’s whatever. Or there is no available replacement, or you could not afford it. What to expect? And how to prepare? When it takes letters a week to get from the continent to reach Hawai’i, I get worried. There is no home delivery to my place or to much of the rural parts of the Big Island. Slower mail service is a likely consequence of Peak Oil. As gasoline prices soon rise to $4, $5 and more a gallon, stamp prices will rise and delivery will take longer -- weeks, maybe even months to some remote places. Americans already complain, big time, about what they experience as high gasoline prices. Compared to what gas costs elsewhere and will soon cost here, those prices are not so high. Europe’s gas prices have been double ours for years. People manage there. But then, they are not as dependent upon cars and do not live in suburbs as much as we do. Many nations are also more used to disasters and wars, often supported by or even caused by America to insure its continued domination of natural resources, including petroleum. Americans feel we are entitled to Cheap Oil and its multiple “benefits” -- industrial agriculture, electricity, the freedom of single-occupant vehicles, petroleum-based medicines, clothes, etc. When Americans turn on the faucet, they expect water to flow, often not even knowing where it comes from. With a flick of a switch, Americans expect darkness to give way to the miracle of immediate light, even at night. Candle-making is likely once again to become lucrative work. What will happen when American cities get thrown outside their comfort zones? Some people will pull together to help each other, especially in smaller cities and in neighborhoods where people know and care for each other. This will reveal our better selves. It’s what I remember from blizzards in the Northeast. They can even be fun, a needed disruption in daily routines, which can help build community. But what happens when there is competition for limited food and other resources, like toilet paper or chocolate? Things could get ugly, especially when market shelves lack food. Most readers probably were not born before electricity reached their homes. We did not have electricity on our family farm during the early years of my life. Rural electrification finally arrived. We didn’t have television until I was a teenager. Life without TV really wasn’t so bad. For entertainment we watched the barnyard animals; I especially enjoyed the playful piglets and chickens, who provided eggs for our rotten-egg fights. At night we had gaslights and Uncle Dale told stories with animals, plants, and fantasy that incubated our dreams. “Once upon a time, long, long ago…” are words that still comfort me. Some places in the world still lack electricity, phones and computers. But they have their oral traditions and stories. Modern conveniences can make our lives appear easier, but they also create vulnerabilities. I have come to expect the comforts of electricity -- refrigerators rather than ice boxes, computers, private phones rather than party-lines, etc. Their loss that would be hard, and I will miss the relative ease at getting them repaired. But having already lived without electricity for years, it may not be as hard for me as some post-digital people. “How we are accustomed to our comforts!” noted Ann Weller of Willits Economic Relocalization (WELL) in Northern California. “I returned recently from India, where the cold water bucket and small dipper method is used to bathe. It is simple, invigorating, and can be done outside even. But I find I am not doing it here -- since I have a shower!” I am preparing myself for experiencing losses, partly by appreciating all the wonderful things that Cheap Energy has brought us. I also work to do what Richard Heinberg describes in his book Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World to mitigate pending problems. As an apparently Arab quotation goes, indicating an awareness of oil’s finite supply and imminent shortages: “My grandfather rode a camel. I drive a car. My son travels in jet airplanes. His son will ride a camel.” We need long-term views to help understand what is happening at the beginning of the 21st century. But we may not have much time. We need to inform others about what may happen, how to prepare and adapt, and work for social change. Nothing lasts forever. Everything that lives eventually dies. Even inanimate objects can finally dissolve or evolve into something else. The lava stones on which my house in Hawai’i is built will eventually become soil. So will we. Dr. Shepherd Bliss, sb3@pon.net, recently moved back to his Kokopelli Farm in Sonoma County, mainly to prepare for Peak Oil among his long-time friends. He spent the previous three years teaching at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. He is a contributor to the new book Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, edited by Maxine Hong Kingston. <back | top^ |